PROVIDENCE, R.I. - No. 1 seed Yale University and No. 2 Cornell University advanced to tomorrow’s championship game with a pair of semifinal wins today in the Ivy Madness Tournament.
 
Regular season champion Yale survived a second half surge from Princeton to advance to the championship finale, while Cornell earned a double-digit victory over Dartmouth in Saturday’s second contest.
 
Tomorrow’s championship final is set for 12:00 p.m. (EST) on ESPN2 with an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line.
 
Yale 59, Princeton 57
Yale opened the first game of the day with a 12-0 run over the course of a little over five minutes of action before Princeton’s Dalen Davis put his team on the board with a three-pointer. Davis’ make sparked a Princeton offense that eventually closed the gap to a one-point margin, 21-20, on a three-pointer from Blake Peters with 6:20 to play in the half.
 
However, the Bulldogs responded with 10 unanswered points of their own to build the lead back to double digits on back-to-back baskets by Ivy League Player of the Year Bez Mbeng.
 
After holding a six-point lead at the break, Yale quickly pushed the advantage back to 11 points, 39-28, on consecutive three-pointers from John Poulakidas and a layup from Casey Simmons.
 
The Bulldogs remained in front for much of the second half of play before Princeton’s CJ Happy buried a three-pointer with 3:29 on the clock to put the Tigers ahead by a one-point margin. The two sides traded baskets down the stretch with Poulakidas nailing the go-ahead three-pointer with a minute remaining as a last-second heave from Princeton missed the mark.
 
As a team, Yale held a 35-29 edge in total rebounds and shot nearly 45 percent from the floor, while holding Princeton to a 38.6 percent shooting performance on the other side of the floor.
 
Peters and teammate Xaivian Lee each scored 14 points to lead all players, as Poulakidas led the Yale offense with 13 points of his own. Nick Townsend turned in a double-double for the Bulldogs with 12 points and 12 rebounds to go along with four assists
 
Cornell 87, Dartmouth 71
In Saturday’s second semifinal matchup, Cornell and Dartmouth swapped leads early on in the first half before the Big Red took a lead, 16-15, with 9:02 remaining that they never relinquished.
 
The first half lead grew to as large a margin as 10 points on several occasions as Cornell carried a 44-36 advantage into the halftime break.The second half of play saw the Big Red increase its lead to 18 points, 82-64, when Jake Fiegen converted an and-one with 3:53 on the clock.
 
Cornell big man AK Okereke led all players with 25 points, making 10-of-15 shots from the floor, to go along with nine rebounds, four assists, four blocks and four steals. Fiegen followed with 16 points of his own as the Big Red shot 53.3 percent from the field and dominated inside with 42 points in the paint.
 
Dartmouth’s Brandon Mitchell-Day poured in 20 points with seven rebounds in 31 minutes of play, finishing 9-for-13 from the floor, to lead four Big Green players in double figures.